Actividades comunitarias

Biografía

Judy Chu was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in July 2009. She represents the 27th Congressional District, which includes Pasadena and the west San Gabriel Valley.

Rep. Chu currently serves on the House Judiciary Committee, where she is a member of the Subcommittees on Intellectual Property and the Internet, as well as Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security and Investigations.

She also serves on the House Small Business Committee, which has oversight of the Small Business Administration. Rep. Chu is the ranking Member on the Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Tax and Capital Access. She is also a member of the Subcommittees on Contracting and Workforce, as well as the Subcommittee on Health and Technology.

In 2011, Chu was elected Chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, which advocates for the needs and concerns of the Asian American and Pacific Islander community across the nation.

Chu founded and co-chairs the Congressional Creative Rights Caucus, which advocates for the copyright protections of those in the creative industries, such as music, film and visual arts. She also serves in leadership of the House Democratic Caucus as a member of the Steering and Policy Committee.

She was first elected to the Board of Education for the Garvey School District in 1985. From there, she was elected to the Monterey Park City Council, where she served as Mayor three times. She then was elected to the State Assembly, and then California's elected tax board, known as the State Board of Equalization. In 2009, she became the first Chinese American woman elected to Congress in history.

Individuos (1)

Preguntas y Respuestas

Preguntas de The League of Women Voters of California Education Fund and California Counts, a public media collaboration. (4)

The Federal Government plays a part in California water allocation and use through a variety of laws. What, if any, legislation would you support in an effort to handle water shortages caused by the current and any future drought?

Respuesta de Judy Chu:

I am original cosponsor of H.R. 291, the Water in the 21st Century (W21) Act. The legislation includes a number of important provisions that would help communities with efficiency, conservation, recycling, and management. It would do the following:

Provide $50 million for the EPA’s WaterSense Program which promotes water conservation in products, buildings, and landscapes through information and rebates.

Provide $700 million for rebates, through FY2019, and then funds them at FY2019 levels adjusted for inflation thereafter.

Create a new grant program within the Environmental Protection Agency for local water systems to conserve water, increase water efficiency or reuse water; modify or relocate existing water system infrastructure made or projected to be made inoperable by climate change impacts; preserve or improve water quality, and other projects.

Leverage federal financing – through loan guarantees and matching grants – to help support projects on a regional scale, including water recycling, ground water management, water storage and water conveyance infrastructure.

Provide $150 million for integrated regional water management, reclamation, and recycling projects grants.

Should immigration laws be changed? What changes would you support? Please explain why.

Respuesta de Judy Chu:

I believe strongly that we must have Comprehensive Immigration Reform. In fact, I was one of the five principle cosponsors of HR 15, the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act (2013-2014,) a bill that garnered a historic 200 Congressional co-sponsors. This bill was the result of major bipartisan discussion, and would have taken a major step forward in fixing our broken immigration system. I look forward to reintroducing this bill in the future. It would greatly improve the lives of so many in America by doing the following:

Provide a pathway to permanent legal status in the United Status, bringing the 11 million undocumented immigrants out of the shadows. It would have allowed undocumented immigrants to apply for citizenship in 13 years, after paying taxes and penalties, passing criminal and security background checks and maintaining employment.

Help young people who have known no other country than the U.S. There would be a shorter pathway to citizenship for DREAMERS, undocumented young people brought to the U.S. as children.

Keep families together by eliminating backlogs and reuniting families who have been torn apart. By increasing the number of immigrant visas, the current 4.3 million family visa backlog would be eliminated within 8 years.

Ensure that we don't lose the talent of students who are educated in our colleges and universities by increasing the number of visas for H-1B skilled workers, oftentimes needed in industries such as high technology, computer electronics and biotech.

What, if anything, does the U.S. need to do in order to address national security and terrorism? Please explain your answer in detail.

Respuesta de Judy Chu:

I am a member of the House Judiciary’s Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security and Investigations. With my experience on this subcommittee, I know that we must do the following to enhance our national security and anti-terrorism efforts.

We must keep Americans safe from global terrorism and ISIS. They pose some of the greatest threats to Americans here at home and abroad. We must continue to work with our allies, including those in the Middle East to eliminate the threat from ISIS. This is why I support international collaboration to ensure that our counterrorism and intelligence gathering efforts are effective. These alliances will help us continue our country’s engagement with the United Nations and other multilateral organizations.

I support investing more resources to improve security for our transit, aviation, infrastructure, and port security. We must fully fund the FBI’s counterterrorism efforts to stop attacks here in the homeland. This funding would increase FBI’s workforce and information sharing efforts at the Terrorist Screening Center. This will help us effectively address homegrown threats we have within our own borders.

We must keep guns and other weapons out of the hands of suspected terrorists. That’s why I support legislation that would close the loophole that allows terrorist suspects on the “No Fly” list to buy dangerous weapons in the United States.

We must strengthen our nation’s cybersecurity to ensure that our industries, infrastructure and government are protected from foreign cyberattacks. In our digital world, cyberattacks have become a reality and serious attacks can compromise our nation’s economy and safety. I support building on President Obama’s Cybersecurity National Action Plan by modernizing our federal information technology and upgrading our government’s cybersecurity infrastructure. We must accomplish this while protecting the privacy and civil liberties of American citizens.

We must prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to ensure security of our nation and our allies. This is why I supported the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran nuclear deal. As the deal reached Congress for a vote, Iconcluded that the issue of utmost importance is ensuring that Iran does not get a nuclear weapon. A nuclear Iran would be an unacceptable danger. Iran’s rhetoric about destroying Israel presented the real threat that one nuclear bomb from Iran could wipe out the Jewish state forever. At the time we considered the JCPOA, Iran could produce enough material for a nuclear weapon in 2-3 months. The deal prevented Iran from having a nuclear weapon for 15 years. For the sake of our security, the security of our allies, and our position as a trustworthy global leader, I voted to support the Iran nuclear deal.

The political climate in Washington, D.C. has been extremely partisan in recent years. In that kind of atmosphere, what would you do to get things done while in office?

Respuesta de Judy Chu:

While there is a partisan political climate in Washington D.C., I have focused my attention on fostering bipartisan cooperation on issues where it is possible across parties. I feel so fortunate to be able to attain success in these areas, which include small business, protecting our creative industries, and fighting the drug cartels.

Regarding small business,I worked with Rep. Bill Schilling (R-IL) to introduce the Building Better Business Partnerships Act. This bill helped small firms break into federal contracting by making it easier for them to join mentor-protégé programs. By connecting small businesses with established mentors, the bill helped small businesses get the advice they needed to win and perform contracts and subcontracts. The language of this bill was included in the FY 2013 NDAA, and therefore signed into law.

I worked with Rep. Trent Kelly (R-MS) to introduce the Transparency in Small Business Goaling Act. Last year, small businesses missed out on at least $16 billion in government contracting dollars because they were excluded from overseas contracts. By lifting the overseas restriction, we produced a more accurate reporting of our federal contracting goals, adjusting it to open up more opportunities for small business contracts. The language of this bill was included in a larger contracting bill that passed the Small Business Committee in January 2016.

Because of my concerns regarding the outrageous piracy occurring against our creative industries, I established the Congressional Creative Rights Caucus with former Rep. Howard Coble (R-NC). This bipartisan Caucus educates Members of Congress about the importance of preserving and protecting the rights of the creative community in our country. The Caucus works with creators from the motion pictures, music, technology, publishing, and photography industries to protect their copyrights, human rights, First Amendment rights and property rights. After Rep. Coble retired from Congress, I teamed up with Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA) to co-chair the Caucus. We host a number of briefings on Capitol Hill each year to educate Congress on intellectual property protection.

Because of the Creative Rights Caucus, I am working with Rep. Tom Marino (R-PA) on a bill to modernize the Copyright Office. The bill would create an independent Copyright Office and provide the Office with the tools to modernize its IT infrastructure. This would improve our nation’s Copyright registration system and help copyright owners and users to identify ways to better protect creative works.

And, I worked with Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) to pass bipartisan legislation to fight money laundering by the drug cartels. This bill, the Preserving Foreign Criminal Assets for Forfeiture Act, became a top priority for me after my district lost a respected educator and school board member. Agustin Roberto “Bobby” Salcedo was gunned down by suspected narcotics traffickers while visiting his wife’s family in Gomez Palacio, Durango, Mexico on New Year’s Eve. This law allows U.S. law enforcement to more easily freeze the illicit proceeds of international criminal organizations in U.S. financial institutions. It was signed into law by President Obama.

Educación

Preguntas y Respuestas

Preguntas de The League of Women Voters of California Education Fund and California Counts, a public media collaboration. (4)

The Federal Government plays a part in California water allocation and use through a variety of laws. What, if any, legislation would you support in an effort to handle water shortages caused by the current and any future drought?

Respuesta de Jack Orswell:

Water is essential to life and most of the water consumed by Southern Californians is imported from the Colorado River or Northern California. Although current federal policies are progressing towards better water management, we still need better rules defining water quality, allocation and conservation. Water rights come with responsibility and it is the role of the federal government to insure that Americans have a clean, consistent water supply that will meet the needs of a growing population.

If elected, I will support legislation that creates new systems or improves existing systems to increase water storage capacity, capture stormwater runoff, reclaim and recycle waste water and continue the cleanup of the contaminated groundwater basins.

Should immigration laws be changed? What changes would you support? Please explain why.

Respuesta de Jack Orswell:

We have always been a nation of immigrants, but with the worldwide threat of terrorism, our national security requires that we know who is in our country and why they are here. Because of the size of our international borders, we must secure our borders effectively and efficiently. By utilizing cutting-edge technology, we can provide continuous surveillance of our borders.

If elected, I will form a coalition consisting of the members of Congress from California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. These four states alone represent more than 20% of the American population and certainly bear a greater share of undocumented immigrants. The group will identify the circumstances under which an undocumented immigrant will be issued a temporary permit to stay inside the United States, while he or she gets in line and applies for permanent legal status. The temporary permit may involve paying a fine or providing community service. Those who do not meet the required circumstances or fail to register after a certain time period will be subject to arrest and deportation. As Americans, we are humane and compassionate, and yet we are a nation of laws. We need laws that address the entire aspect of the immigration problem, and those laws will be enacted only with leadership, not politics.

What, if anything, does the U.S. need to do in order to address national security and terrorism? Please explain your answer in detail.

Respuesta de Jack Orswell:

I will be an advocate to maintain a strong national defense, to protect our country from all enemies, both foreign and domestic. This means we must maintain a superior military force, not only providing them with the training and equipment they need, but taking care of their families while they are gone. And when these brave warriors come home after serving their country, we are obligated to take care of them and their injuries, both physical and mental, for the rest of their lives. They answered the call to duty, and it is our duty as Americans to take care of our veterans.

I will also insure that the first responders in our communities, our law enforcement officers, firefighters and medical personnel, are provided with the training and equipment they need to detect, prevent and if necessary, respond to acts of domestic terrorism. As we know, freedom is not free, and we must never let our guard down. To maintain a strong national defense, we need to make a long term commitment to our military personnel and their families, and to our first responders. And this long term commitment will only come with leadership, not politics.

The political climate in Washington, D.C. has been extremely partisan in recent years. In that kind of atmosphere, what would you do to get things done while in office?

Respuesta de Jack Orswell:

As a small business owner and a former FBI Agent, I believe that our government is no longer effectively serving the needs of the people. Congress is filled with career politicians who are influenced by corporate and union money, and they seem to be more concerned about getting re-elected than they are about solving problems. I believe that I can make a difference. With my leadership skills, my small business and government experience, and a strong desire to serve my community, I will work with all members of Congress to find solutions and solve the issues that have been lingering in Congress for many years. It is my desire to represent the people of the 27th District and build a better long-term future for our families and America.